Home Despot sells 12 gauge oxygen-free speaker wire by the metre (probably by the foot or yard south of the 49th). I've used it exclusively in my main theatre for over a year. The only caveats are that i) it's pretty "stiff" stuff so running it in tight places / racks can be a pain and ii) that gauge of wire is just big enough to make it too big to fit into cheap "spring clip" speaker wire connectors on some amps / speakers. (In my case on NAD 2150 amps). In those cases end connectors of some type (rather than bare wire) come in handy.

Will you notice a difference in how they "sound" over anything else? I don't. Which is a good thing since to me all speaker wire sounds the same (ie. nothing added and nothing lost.)

Jeff Mackwood